America Today: City Building, 1930–31, Thomas Hart Benton
"'Poor art for poor people.' In the 1930s, the painter Arshile Gorky wielded that phrase like a weapon, disparaging what he saw as propagandist figurative art, art that often depicted and ennobled the American worker. And Gorky was far from alone in his scorn, as painting raced toward the purities of Abstract Expressionism. ... But the arrows of history and taste bend in mysterious ways. And with Labor Day at hand, New York finds itself — partly by happenstance, partly by design — in the middle of what might be described, with apologies to Gorky, as a rich moment for art about the working class, whose embattled existence is once again an issue in a presidential campaign. ..."
NY Times
Metropolitan Museum of Art: America Today: City Building, 1930–31, Thomas Hart Benton
Whitney: John Chamberlain, Velvet White, 1962
Reimagining Modernism—Expanding the Dialogue of Modern Art
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